Consequences of adolescent pregnancy/parenting: a review of the literature.

This article reviews the empirical literature on the consequences of adolescent parenting in the arenas of economic impact, health risks to mother and child, parenting practices, and cognitive and behavioral performance of children. These consequences are divided between the direct effects of adolescent pregnancy and indirect effects, the latter of which are the socioeconomic and background correlates that also contribute to the risk of adolescent pregnancy, such as socioeconomic status, educational level, family structure, and family size. From this review of factors, social work practice and policy recommendations to reduce risk will be explored.